


Restless

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:16:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Mulder can't stay still unless they're travelling.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: N/A  
> A/N: for @dangerscully.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

Mulder can’t stay still unless they’re traveling. Scully gets used to it quickly, the way he paces back and forth through the office and taps his foot through their meetings. If she steps gently on his foot, he’ll rattle his pen on the table or against his lip instead. She doesn’t mind that as much. At least it’s quiet. 

His shoes scuff on the floor of their basement hideaway. Some days it’s soothing, his endless circling of their small space. Watching him reminds her of watching Shark Week, or a nature documentary with about some predatory creature. She imagines some indifferent observer measuring the capacity of his brain and the length of his legs. Other days, she’s irritated. He’s like the second hand of a clock that won’t move forward. The injustice of her desklessness grates at her nerves as she hunches into her corner, writing her reports on the laptop. 

He’s fine in the car or on a plane. Maybe the momentum of the vehicle under him soothes whatever restless mechanism ticks constantly inside him. A body in motion tends to stay in motion, she thinks, and there’s no outside force than can stop him. If he’s ever to find solace in stillness, it will have to be the result of some peace inside him. 

She feels it sometimes herself, in the middle of the night. She rubs her feet against each other, flexes her fingers against the pillow. But all she has to do is think of the heavy shush of the ocean, the waves moving, but the aggregate heft of the water still and calm. She has the water inside her, and the weight of it centers her.


End file.
